plates? -- as many as you may want.... remember: you break 'em - you pay for them!.... my advice: let well alone; stay outa debt..... i used to know how to spin a plate on top of a whipply dowel-type stick.... i wonder if i still have that nack...??

I made the mistake on Tuesday of being in a shopping Mall without a book to read while waiting for daughter and wife to choose clothes. Baby grandson was enviably asnooze in his buggy so limited entertainment there. Then I spotted a book remainders shop and picked up a Koontz - By the Light of the Moon. By the tenth page I was hooked. Some of the beginning seemed a bit familiar - has a film been released of it? I'm sure I have film-Alzheimers. Not that it matters cos the writing, sensory Show, characterization and plot have sucked me in better than a film. The book's in my rucksack now for the next shopping trip.

Aaaarrgh, apparently Deen Koontz - through his MC - thinks that when the magnetic poles reverse their polarity the Earth actually flips over creating huge physical chaos. Noooooo. It's just our compasses and magnetics that flip. There will be other minor effects but no huge earthquakes, volcanoes, hot desert-for-ice changes. Good grief.

I think we've more to worry about when that big meteorite hits. The impact of which will spin the Earth's crust around like it's the skin on a rice pudding. We think the climate's bad at the moment -- just wait until you end up with the south pole in your back garden. Brrr...

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Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

Carried on with work over at the other house over the weekend. Didn't feel like I made much of an impact, but it serves to remind just how much work there is to do there.

Yesterday I ripped out the bathroom suite -- the one I thought about leaving in. Glad I decided to take it out. Found the waste pipe that connected to the bath and basin was 1.5" inserted into 2" with no adaptor. That explains the old wet patch on the ceiling below. The whole thing was bodged together with bits of pushfit hoses, the basin pipes had been push-fitted onto painted copper pipes, and the bath legs had been propped up on tint bits of loose wood. Once I started moving the bath, the whole cradle fell off. I dread to think what would have happened if somebody had filled the thing right up and got into it

Now the whole place looks like a bomb hit it, which is a little demoralising, but it has to get worse before it can get better, and all I can do is keep plugging away at it. I just hope my brother-in-law hurries up with the skimming of the ceilings, otherwise that will hold everything up.

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Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]

When I moved into my current house, the leak in the roof was being dealt with by a large roll of old carpet up in the attic to soak up the water. The survey had managed to miss this. And the downpipe that collected all the rain water from the roof didn't go into any sort of a drain - just into a hole in the ground next to the house so that it could soak into the foundations. Again, not noticed by the surveyor. The bathroom window wasn't held in by anything other than air and optimism. The air was covered up by a thin plywood panel. I had all these problems fixed by a charming rogue of a local builder who did everything wrong.

the sages of the talmud teach us that there are two sorts that will be impoverished [not only in a financial sense], those that depend entirely on farming for their livelyhood - ie the rain, and those that build a house without being on-site...

when i built my place [from the ground, up] i was there every day for 8 months [thats how long it took me] .... and i insisted on doing certain 'elements' - including the electrics and plumbing - myself [not such a big deal: - all the plumbing is plastic these days -- including the manholes!...]

... and i learned what a crowbar is in arabic...

ed, the bottom line is -- its just hard work .... ENJOY!!!!!! ... and good-luck...

I'll try to keep that in mind, Dan, thanks. Should have gone over there last night, but it was cold, wet and windy out that my hibernation instinct kicked in, so I stayed in my cave. Now I have too much to do today

Logged

Planning is an unnatural process - it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression. [Sir John Harvey-Jones]